Take You Child’s Interest in Flight From Hobby to Expert with Dr. Aviation {Review}

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Round out your transcript with a high school elective that the whole family will really enjoy with Dr. Aviation. Our district requires 50 credits; of which 25 are elective hours, to graduate. Though we are not bound to the districts requirements, I do want our kids to experience the electives they might not have time to explore when they hit college.  

Electives are a great way to go in depth on a subject outside of your core studies. I have found that electives have a higher chance of being completed when they are high quality and are combined with our children's interests. When I heard about the aviation course with Dr. Aviation, I was immediately interested because our family is interested in aviation history and aviation online training videos , but had tons left to explore.

My oldest had an old Army Field Identification Handbook that he would pour over for hours as a little guy. Each page had a silhouette of the shape of each aircraft from the ground and a highlight of identifying markers. He learned the names of nearly every plane in the book and has a knowledge of the history of flight that even surprised me. As for our younger ones, our local pilots put on an event every year to introduce kids to aviation by offering free plane rides to local students. For many of the local kids it is the only flight they might ever take. I was not sure what my kids would think as we arrived. I was not surprised one bit that my seven year old was first in line for the little two seater prop plane. Every child ended up in the sky that day and they were amazed. One flight was all it took for them to love airplanes.

I previewed the course with my teen for this review. I wanted to learn more about the technical aspects of the cockpit and instrumentation used to fly. I knew my older teens loved planes for different reasons. My son has always been interested and my daughter has a new friend who’s father is a pilot and has flown often. This made it a great time to take an elective course for school credit that captured their interests, that was still fun and interesting.

The course is hosted by Daryl Smith; as Dr. Aviation, who server as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force and was an instructor at the United States Air Force Academy. His professional knowledge shines through in every lesson. This course is an in depth view of each area of aviation knowledge covered.  

Each segment is broken into 3 segments

•Technical Trivia

•Notable Innovators

• Legendary Aircraft & Events

I was sure to print the PDF Guide Notes for each section. They were very helpful as you listened and followed along. I found myself referring back to them often and was glad I had filled in the blanks. This is also great if you are trying to build a portfolio of work for the end of the school year. The Guide Pages would serve as a professional representation of the work your child covered during the course.

I learn best with video because I am a auditory/visual learner. I find that I relate and retain information best through stories, so I loved the Notable Innovators segment. My son loved the Legendary Aircraft & Events because he could add to his list of Aviation knowledge.

At the conclusion of each of the 15 video sessions there are action steps to follow as well as additional resources to help you do research on your own to learn more. You can watch more than one lesson at a sitting or you can do one a week and really go in depth. We did a little of both since it is summer. I watched a few videos in the morning while everyone was sleeping so I could really listen. The whole family could gather together to watch and learn if you have a smart TV. We have begun doing this more and more for online courses that are designed for more than one student. If your kids are going to watch TV, you might as well sneak in as much learning as possible.

Our goal is to get back to our air field and see some of the things we have learned about in the series. We will be ready for next year's flying event and can test our knowledge with the awesome team of pilot volunteers. Until then I am going to finish up lesson six and learn how to fly when you cant see to world outside the cockpit window.

Want to learn more? Check out Dr. Aviation on Facebook and Twitter and as always read a few more of the reviews in the link below to find out how other families are using Dr. Aviation to earn merit badges and class room credit themselves.